never can think of anything so wild?” he said, in a tumult of agitation.
“Lor’ bless yer ’art, no,” said the boy; “we never thinks of anything vot’s wild—our ’abits is business-like; but vot you’ve got to do is to go to sleep, and not to worrit yourself; and as I said before, I say again, when you’re well and strong we’ll think about changin’ these apartments. We can make excuse that the look-out was too lively, or that the colour of the whitewash was a-hinjurin’ our eyesight.”
For the first time for many nights Richard slept well; and opening his eyes the next morning, his first anxiety was to convince himself that the arrival of the boy from Slopperton was not some foolish dream engendered in his disordered brain. No, there the boy sat: whether he had been to sleep on the table, or whether he had never taken his eyes off Richard the whole night, there he was, with those eyes fixed, exactly as they had been the night before, on the prisoner’s face.
“Why, I declare we’re all the better for our good night’s rest,” he said, rubbing his hands, as he contemplated Richard; “and we’re ready for our breakfast as soon as ever we can get it, which will be soon, judging by our keeper’s hobnailed boots as is a-comin’ down the passage with a tray in his hand.”
This rather confused statement was confirmed by a noise in the stone corridor without, which sounded as if a pair of stout working men’s bluchers were walking in company with a basin and a teaspoon.
“Hush!” said the boy, holding up a warning forefinger, “keep it dark!” Richard did not exactly know what he was to keep dark; but as he had, without one effort at resistance, surrendered himself, mentally and physically, to the direction of his small attendant, he lay perfectly still, and did not utter a word.
In obedience to this youthful director, he also took his breakfast, to the last mouthful of the regulation bread, and to the last spoonful of the regulation coffee—ay, even to the grounds (which, preponderating in that liquid, formed a species of stratum at the bottom of the basin, commonly known to the inmates of the asylum as “the thick”)—for as the boy said, “grounds is strengthening.” Breakfast finished, the asylum physician came, in the course of his rounds, for his matutinal visit to Richard’s cell. His skill was entirely at a loss to find any cure for so strange a disease as that which affected the prisoner. One of the leading features, however, in this young man’s sickness, had been an entire loss of appetite, and almost an entire inability to sleep. When, therefore, he heard that his patient had eaten a good supper, slept well all night, and had just finished the regulation breakfast, he said,—
“Come, come, we are getting better, then—our complaint is taking a turn. We are quiet in our mind, too, eh? Not fretting about Moscow, or making ourselves unhappy about Waterloo, I hope?”
The asylum doctor was a cheerful easy good-tempered fellow, who humoured the fancies of his patients, however wild they might be; and though half the kings in the history of England, and some sovereigns unchronicled in any history whatever were represented in the establishment, he was never known to forget the respect due to a monarch, however condescending that monarch might be. He was, therefore, a general favourite; and had received more orders of the Bath and the Garter, in the shape of red tape and scraps of paper, and more title-deeds, in the way of old curl-papers and bits of newspaper, than would have served as the stock-in-trade of a marine storekeeper, with the addition of a few bottles and a black doll. He knew that one characteristic of Richard’s madness was to fancy himself the chained eagle of the sea-bound rock, and he thought to humour the patient by humouring the hallucination.
Richard looked at this gentleman with a thoughtful glance in his dark eyes.
“I didn’t mind Moscow, sir,” he said, very gravely; “the elements beat me there—and they were stronger than Hannibal; but at Waterloo, what broke my heart was—not the defeat, but the disgrace!” He turned away his head as he spoke, and lay in silence, with his back turned to the good-natured physician.
“No complaints about Sir Hudson Lowe, I hope?” said the medical man. “They give you everything you want, general?”
The good doctor, being so much in the habit of humouring his patients, had their titles always at the tip of his tongue; and walked about in a perfect atmosphere of Pinnock’s Goldsmith.
As the general made no reply to his question, the doctor looked from him to the boy, who had, out of respect to the medical official, descended from his pulpit, and stood tugging at a very diminutive lock of hair, with an action which he intended to represent a bow.
“Does he ask for anything?” asked the doctor.
“Don’t he, sir?” said the boy, answering one question with another. “He’s been doing nothin’ for ever so long but askin’ for a drop o’ wine. He says he feels a kind of sinkin’ that nothin’ but wine can cure.”
“He shall have it, then,” said the doctor. “A little port wine with a touch of iron in it would help to bring him round as soon as anything, and be sure you see that he takes it. I’ve been giving him quinine for some time past; but it has done so little towards making him stronger, that I sometimes doubt his having taken it. Has he complained of anything else?”
“Well, sir,” said the boy, this time looking at his questioner very intently, and seeming to consider every word before he said it, “there is somethin’ which I can make out from what he says when he talks to hisself—and he does talk to hisself awful—somethin’ which preys upon his mind very much; but I don’t suppose it’s much good mentioning it either.” Here he stopped, hesitating, and looking very earnestly at the doctor.
“Why not, my boy?”
“Because you see, sir, what he hankers after is agen the rules of the asylum—leastways, the rules the Board makes for such as him.”
“But what is it, my good lad? Tell me what it is he wishes for?” said the medical man.
“Why, it’s a singular wish, I dare say, sir; but he’s allus a talkin’ about the other lun——” he hesitated, as if out of delicacy towards Richard, and substituted the word “boarders” for that which he had been about to use—“and he says, if he could only be allowed to mix with ’em now and then he’d be as happy as a king. But, of course, as I was a-tellin’ him when you come in, sir, that’s agen the rules of the establishment, and in consequence is impossible—’cause why, these ’ere rules is like Swedes and Nasturtiums—(the boy from Slopperton may possibly have been thinking of the Medes and Persians)—and can’t be gone agen.”
“I don’t know about that,” said the good-natured doctor. “So, general,” he added, turning to Richard, who had shifted his position, and now lay looking at his visitor rather anxiously, “so, general, you would like to mix with your friends out there?”
“Indeed I should, sir.” Those deep and earnest dark eyes, with which Richard watched the doctor’s face, were scarcely the eyes of a madman.
“Very well, then,” said the medical man, “very well; we must see if it can’t be managed. But I say, general, you’ll find the Prince Regent among your fellow-boarders; and I wouldn’t answer for your not meeting with Lord Castlereagh, and that might cause unpleasantness—eh, general?”
“No, no, sir; there’s no fear of that. Political differences should never——”
“Interfere with private friendship. A noble sentiment, general. Very well, you shall mix with the other boarders to-morrow. I’ll speak to the Board about it this afternoon. This, luckily, is a Boardday.
